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Opps, I was wrong. Strange that I don't see it in the bash manual ( http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html ).

Such a license would not be Open Source and would not be Free Software.

Yes and no, my suggestion would take it into a gray area. In practice, all software would still be (almost always) available "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer"; exactly as FSF states in The Free Software Definition. The only real exceptions for software being free, would only be if...

• Charities decide to close a piece of software, e.g. for donating it into a property of some third world company or selling the software for a substantial amount of money they need for their charity operations
• Charities approve a company to temporarily (max 5 years) run their product as a closed source product. After 5 years product would need to be re-opened

And as the license draft states:

Allowing this much power to charity organizations is of cause a matter of trust i.e. whether you trust them to carefully consider the consequences of their actions.

Thus, it is quite certain that everyone realizes the need for charities to do good balanced decisions (if any) regarding software, in order to remain supported by the coding community.

Yes, you are right the license is effectively, creating a software company which gives all of its profits to a charity. But the practical role of charities, would almost always be in just selling the licenses. But hey, most charities are already today selling something from first aid kits to X-mas cards.

Company X: We need to get 50 ChOS licenses
Charity Z: The price is 20EUR each
Company X: Here you are, 1000EUR
Charity Z: Thank you and we hope you like your products-what ever they are :)

If my license suggestion would one day facilitate launching a 'real' charity open source license - mission complete! And I would not want to be in any leading position in that organization just to mark that the license is not for me, but its a donation in itself.

Besides is there really that much difference to e.g. Sun/MySQL's GPL lisenced free software? MySQL has been selling commercial licenses for "corporate users" for years. Charity open source license just has that as a build-in feature.

If they used a license anything like what you propose (i.e. corporations are required to pay) then it would be very unlikely to get any support from the Free Software community and it would prevent the code from being used by any Free Software project, even as an indirect dependency.

Yes, that might be the case, but consider that tens of thousands are already volunteering for doing some physical work for the charities. And there probably are and will be even many programmers among them. The apparent incompatibility of licenses is an unfortunate thing, but most often even companies manage to produce software without accidental OS license injections.

Thank you for taking the time to think, analyze and post.

Posting anonymously due to mod points

The law you are talking about ("liability" as you call it) is really the tort of negligence. Negligence requires three elements: that the defendant had a duty of care to the plaintiff; that the defendant failed to meet the required standard of care (i.e. a breach of duty); and that the plaintiff suffered damage.

The test for most things in negligence is basically reasonable foreseeability. This isn't strictly true, but it'll do for these purposes.

Establishing a duty of care would require that the defendant should have foreseen the use of their product. Someone installing snake on a flight control computer isn't foreseeable, really, but someone using OpenProj to plan a project probably is.

Now that we've established a duty there's a question about standard. Is the code up to scratch? Is it the standard that could be reasonably expected from software providers? If it's been designed by someone qualified and has undergone some QA, yeah, it's probably up to scratch. This is a question of law (i.e. decided by the judge alone) and will vary widely depending on the duty established.

Finally, damage must be shown. This is generally pretty easy, but must be shown to be not too remote. Also, pure economic loss is only available in restricted circumstances.

There are other things to consider too: did the plaintiff contribute to their damage? Should additional defendants be held vicariously liable? And most importantly in this context, did the plaintiff waive their right to sue in negligence. Probably: see GPL ss 15-17 and every other EULA.

In conclusion: don't worry about it. Nobody's going to sue you and if they do they'll probably lose. IAAAL (I Am Almost A Lawyer).

here.

Thanks to X, Emacs has built-in collaborative editing.

M-x make-frame-on-display

You can do this over ssh (X forwarding) to open a frame on someone else's computer (or several other's computers). They get their own cursor and everything, and, if you are looking in the same buffer, you can actively see the other person/people typing away. Just don't C-x C-c or you close it for everyone!

Security note: watch out, because whoever you give a frame to can trivially get shell access in your account.

Escape Meta Control Alt Shift (more at http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/gnuemacs.acro.exp.html)

There's always the classic:

Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed. Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

Source

When writing scientific papers in LaTeX, there's nothing else that comes close to the power of AUCTeX with preview-latex http://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/preview-latex.html. It allows you to view typeset equations inline with the rest of the document, but on moving the cursor into an equation, shows the original code. After editing, one brief command, and the new equation is typeset and displayed.

>I know TCP/IP is a standardized protocol, which was my point. If it had been GPL software, it would have gone nowhere because companies wouldn't have adopted it in the early days of the Internet.

But TCP/IP is a protocol, it can never be GPL. GPL covers software. So this comparision is somewhat wrongfooted.
There are protocols that were first implemented in GPLed software, but here we have a strong point pro GPL (and in this case other open source licenses): You can easily code your own software according to the protocol, and use the GPLed implementation to test your implementation. And you can sell your implementation with whatever license you want. You can even distribute one part of your system with GPLed software (lets say, the server), and distribute your part (the client) with another license. Because they are separate programs connected via a welldocumented protocol, the GPL actually encourages this (see the GNU FAQ for details.)

We have these powerful graphical desktops

There's also the puzzling fact that a lot of emacs and vim non-users seem to think they don't have GUIs. Now, vim got "gvim" relatively recently, but emacs has had a bitmapped GUI for an extremely long time, most people run it in GUI mode. (Apple shipped a crappy nongui build of emacs with macosx though).

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ - Emacs, a gui application with multiple windows and toolbars and menubar and stuff.

People have really strange ideas about emacs. It's like when you ask a windozer about linux and they go "oh yeah, it's that thing like MS-DOS, right?".

GNU Stow is the king of DIY software packaging.

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/stow/packagename-version --mandir=/usr/local/stow/packagename-version/share/man && make && make install && cd /usr/local/stow && stow packagename-version

(mandir is optional, but it ensures you don't have to fight between /usr/local/man and /usr/local/share/man.) This is specifically useful because you can use ls or find to see what is provided by the package (just use the stow dir), and far more importantly, you can completely remove a package later (say for an upgrade or replacement).

what if your version of UNIX doesn't have a perl interpreter installed, and your company didn't pay for the c compiler licenses for your OS?

That's sooooo 1980s thinking. These days you can just download gcc binaries for your benighted platform.
Granted, I don't see binaries from trustworthy sources for some really benighted platforms like DEC Ultrix or A/UX. If you're stuck on those things then you have my sympathy....

heh, guess I was flat out wrong... sorry

-Em

And for anyone who *does* install things to /usr/local occasionally, may I introduce you to GNU Stow. Anyone installing directly to /usr/local is asking for trouble... stow (or any number of similar alternatives) makes it possible to manage software in /usr/local in a sensible way. I've been using it for many years, now, and I can't imagine my life without it.

This was 1993. There weren't many options back in 1993. Back then, you had to pay a large amount of money to get a compiler for a unix box, even with the academic discount.

GCC 2.4.0 was released in 1993.

Who named gNewSense anyway? I always read it as "Gee, nuisance." As much as I love Free Software, I think these guys are a bit tone deaf at times.

*sigh*

please bear in mind that not all of us have read the GPL from start to finish, or have a copy on hand to cut and paste from.

So, you have an internet connection that lets you get to slashdot, but not (among other places) http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html?

There's a surprising amount you can do from the command line within Windows these days. For UI access, RDP beats the common alternatives hands down, even if you log in just to use a command prompt remotely and thus have console state stored between sessions if the connection goes down. Have you actually tried this?

Wow, the connection goes down and you get to keep your terminal session? That's got to be some sort of black magic.

While I appreciate the information you provided & thank you for it, please bear in mind that not all of us have read the GPL from start to finish, or have a copy on hand to cut and paste from. The condescension is not strictly necessary.

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=GPL
First result: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

The condescension was not strictly necessary, but not completely unwarranted either. This is not the Ubuntu mailing list, there to gently guide to towards understanding. There would be many here who think that if you're going to discuss the GPL, it isn't too much to expect you to read it first. If you don't, it is not up to us to make sure you feel good about that.

So they are obliged to give any modifications to the source code to the government, as that is their customer.

*sigh* No, you're wrong.

This is only true if they're delivering the source and the binaries together.

If they don't include the source, they must include a written offer of the source, and the written offer must be valid for *everybody*, not just their "customer".

Please do a little reading before you make an ass of yourself, this is getting quite tiring.

>Great, we can finally throw away all those flash-based player junks which don't work on all OSes and thus fails at the very purpose of the Web!

Just so you know, I recently downloaded Ubuntu 8.10 and I installed the Gnash sofware on it.

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash

Plays Youtube just fine.

Gnash is open source, so it should be able to be compiled for all OSes.

From Wikipedia:
"Gnash, however, can be compiled and executed on many architectures, including x86, AMD64, MIPS/Irix, and PowerPC. It also supports BSD-based operating systems. An early port for RISC OS, which has never had Macromedia/Adobe Flash support beyond Flash 3, does exist, as well as an early port for BeOS, where Flash support terminated at Version 4."

Only a moron would be scared to legitimately use open source software because someone else illegitimately used open software. That's a little like being afraid to closed source software because a warez site got raided. The only companies that "don't understand" what they can and cannot due under the GPL are the ones that are using an "I'm stupid" smoke screen to try and hide their illegal behavior.

uh, no, there are real grey area issues here, and it's not a matter of stupid people don't get it and smart people do- from the gs-dev message linked, the gs folks 'do not consider bundling as an integrated component intended to work with other software as "mere aggregation" under the GPL.' the point to note is they do not consider it an aggregate- not that it isn't. it's a grey area - look at the gnu fact- http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation : "Where's the line between two separate programs, and one program with two parts? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges will decide."

it's acknowledged right up front that this is a grey area legal issue.

If you distribute a GPL program, you are required to specify that you are using GPL software, and you must let your users know their rights to view, modify and distribute the source code. Additionally, you are required to give them the source, or offer to do so.

The GPL is more or less straightforward and easy to understand. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt

The Internet is a vital part of participating in modern society.

Exactly. Try getting by on a somewhat modern western university without having access to the online materials (Stallman wrote about that.)

Note that the Democrats are more in bed with the media industries, so I think this nightmare scenario might be closer to realization if a democrat were elected. See the Author's Note from Stallman's "The Right to Read": http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

The right to read.

If someone could just lend a friend a disc for a few hours and they could have a full copy of a game, infringement might be even more widespread.

Wait... since when is lending my disc to a friend considered copyright infringement? Where did I make a copy?

This sounds like a good cue to post a link to RMS' essay "The Right to Read":
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

And it entirely fails to mention the 4.4 series...

Care to back up point 2? Can you please make a second file which has the same md5sum as http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-1.0.txt ? I think you are either confused about MD5 or underestimating it. It is flawed, but not that flawed.

Of course I am aware of that. The POWER 5 CPU even got BCD floating point arithmetic on chip. And - hey - the 6502 (Apple II, Atari 800, C=64) had BCD arithmetic. They all have - because it is important!

And that is the whole point of my post. A compiler with build in BCD arithmetic - like Ada, Cobol and PL/1 can make use those instructions far better then a compiler which only has a BCD add on in form of a library. And the reason is that a library - once compiled - can not run true the optimiser any more. And it is not the fault of the compiler vendors it's a problem of the standardisation bodies which designed the language itself.

But note that GNU C is getting Decimal floating point as well - build in not as a library:

http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.2.4/gcc/Decimal-Float.html

Problem is: Financial institution prefer decimal fixed point.

Add it's an extension only available to GNU C.

Martin

i just have to give the source to people who buy it off me that's all

Slashdot needs to oblige posters to pass a quiz every time they type "GPL".

What part of anyone who possesses the object code is confusing you?

For those curious, the references to 'herd' refer to GNU Hurd, http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html.

Does Microsoft have the right to charge more money to consumers who buy a copy of Windows, rather than OEM's? What about the price differential between "Upgrade" licenses and "Retail" licenses? Microsoft presently offers both Upgrade and retail licenses - Apple only offers upgrade licenses. Licenses can dictate whatever terms they want, as long as those terms don't violate the law. Is Psystar's lawsuit going to mean we can finally buy software, rather than licensing it? I doubt it.

Someone already is challenging Apple's (And Microsoft's, and Sun's, and Adobe's, etc.) licenses.
It's called the
GPL.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#PC

"PC"

It's ok to use the abbreviation "PC" to refer to a certain kind of computer hardware, but please don't use it with the implication that the computer is running Microsoft Windows. If you install GNU/Linux on the same computer, it is still a PC.

I agree - piracy is a horrible thing. I mean, all those shipments of chinese-made software discs being stolen from ships by machine-gun toting pirates is just tragic. Not to mention when they attack the cruise ships that the software company CEO's are on and disrupt their R&R time, making it harder for them to run the company. And don't forget the coffee bean shipments - why when those ships are pirated thats going for the jugular - they know programmers cant work without coffee.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy

Heh. Lemme guess, you've never contributed to the Linux kernel or done any noteworthy coding in your life?

GNU's kernel isn't finished, so GNU is used with the kernel Linux. The combination of GNU and Linux is the GNU/Linux operating system, now used by millions.

That's from http://www.gnu.org/, titled "The GNU Operating System." GNU/Linux is in no way the kernel - Linux is the kernel, which is under the GPLv3. GNU is the system of userspace utilities that are bundled with the linux kernel in order to construct the GNU/Linux Operating System.

Just because you have never used GNU/Linux without the additives like X or a package manager doesn't mean its not possible. In fact, it was the only thing that was possible in the early 90s when the Linux kernel was first developed.

You can still construct the plain vanilla GNU/Linux operating system using the Linux From Scratch guide http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/. GNU offers its userspace utilities separately and Linux also provides its kernel as a standalone download at kernel.org.

I am a big fan of (the basic GNU) Emacs, because it's so easy to edit with a nice blank screen rather than all having those superfluous menubars and whatnot cluttering up the workspace.

There is no doubt about it, the Emacs architecture has won the day. Microsoft uses a poorly reimplemented model for everything nowadays. The ability to modify behavior of an application with a full-fledged computer language was truly innovative. http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html

(My perspective is of one who remembers when Emacs was a bunch of macros for TECO, so I never got into the habit of using a menubar.) And now that GNU Emacs can render fonts nicely in X11, XEmacs has become even more otiose.

I happen to like menubars, scrollbars and GUI and that's why I was attracted to XEmacs in order to fix the deficiencies in 19.14.

You can always turn off that sort of stuff in XEmacs. My first commercial use of XEmacs was as an embedded editor in a Process Control System that only had access to PC console tty.

But ... if it bothers you, no problem. At least you're not using something loathesome like VIM. (nvi is nice though).

And XEmacs has as much right to be called "GNU Emacs" as the one sitting on gnu.org, but that is an argument for a different day.

Nowadays, anyone who wants to discover a new operating system wants to try a live CD first.

Although there were other live OpenBSD CDs (like OliveBSD), yet another one, especially based upon something original like Enlightenment, is a great thing.

OpenBSD is often described as a server-only (or network-stuff-only) operating system. Actually, it can also be a decent desktop OS.

I'm using OpenBSD on my primary workstation for 7 years and I'm quite happy with it. The only thing I *really* miss, especially as a web developper, is the lack of Flash support (except crappy support with Opera). nspluginwrapper + linux emulation is still as stable as nitroglycerine.

Not to be an OSS whore, but check out the latest development sources for gnash. If definitely improved since the last time I've used it. I've also heard that some flash 9 apps are starting to load just fine, but what do I know.

bzr branch http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/gnash/trunk

If you can try it out tonight, reply to this because i'm curious on how it works out on OpenBSD

Here you are.

It's not quite a perfect match, but RMS's The Right To Read explains quite a bit.

You just *know* that tools for circumventing censorship will be made illegal- much like tools for circumventing DRM- and it's not the courts who are going to be deciding what's OK and what isn't. It'll be pollies and censors, and you CANNOT trust them with the power to block criticism of their policies online. I'm just waiting for the Ruddbot to announce his new Ministry of Truth and Ministry of Love.

How? With what tools?

Hobbyists generally have access to basically the same tools that professionals do. If my goal was to replicate a cellphone signal today, I'd probably set up some sort of software radio (like http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/) - which happens to be exactly how some of the cellphone base stations work now.

In some areas, like nuclear power, hobbyists *have* been effectively excluded by denying them access to supplies. Note how nuclear power has improved only slightly and not gotten any cheaper at all over the last 50 years. Compare that to digital computers, where the [ hobbyist to small business founder to industry changer ] path has been alive and well for the same time period.

Not only do hobbyists *have* the right to tinker, you don't want that right messed with even if you don't tinker yourself... in the long term, it's everyone who suffers from the suppressed innovation.

This was devised long ago as something called spook words. In fact emacs has a spook function specifically for this purpose. Tag them on the end of your e-mail or IM or whatever. If enough people do this then they break the filters, kind of like spammers with Bayesian poisoning.

STARLAN ASIO ASO quiche world domination bemd Leitrim Crypto AG Croatian SP4 SSL Jiang Zemin CIA Centro afsatcom

Below is the release announcement. Gnash has worked to synch cyles with Ubuntu and others, and is now on a 3-mo release cycle.

The third beta release of Gnash has just been made at version
0.8.4. Gnash is a GPL'd SWF movie player and browser plugin for
Firefox, Mozilla, and Konqueror. Gnash supports many SWF v7 features
and ActionScript 2 classes. with growing support for SWF v8 and
v9. Gnash also runs on many GNU/Linux distributions, embedded
GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, non x86 processors, and 64 bit
architectures. Ports to Darwin and Windows are in progress for a
future release. The plugin works best with Firefox 1.0.4 or newer, and
should work in any Mozilla based browser using NPAPI. There is also a
standalone player for GNOME or KDE based desktops.

Improvements since 0.8.3 release are:

        * Keep Adobe happy with our users and our users happy with us by
            changing "Flash player" into "SWF player" everywhere. Adobe
            claims "Flash" as a trademark and had asked a Linux distributor
            to fix it.
        * The popular SWF Twitter badge now renders correctly.
        * Fix parsing of urls containing multiple question marks
        * Fix support for movies embedding multiple sound streams
        * Support for loading PNG and GIF images added.
        * Improved rendering of SWF movies because of the less visible
            changes listed below.
        * Support for writing RGB/RGBA PNG images and JPEG images.
        * Works with Potlatch OpenStreetMap editor
        * New 'flvdumper' utility for analyzing FLV video files.
        * XPI packaging support for Mozilla & Firefox.

See the NEWS file for more improvements.

Gnash supports the majority of Flash opcodes up to SWF version 7, and
a wide sampling of ActionScript 2 classes for SWF version 8.5. Flash
version 9 and ActionScript 3 support is being worked on. All the
core ones are implemented, and many of the newer ones work, but may be
missing some of their methods. If the browser only displays a blank
window, it is likely because of an unimplemented feature. All
unimplemented opcodes and ActionScript classes and methods print a
warning when using -v with gnash or gprocessor. Using gprocessor -v is
a quick way to see why a movie isn't playing correctly.

You can grab the Gnash sources from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gnash/0.8.4,
or from Gnash Bzr from the branch .../gnas-0.8.4 . Binary packages for
Debian or RPM based systems will be available from your GNU/Linux
distribution, and from whatever BSD variant you are using. Experimental
binary packages built by the Gnash team are also available at
http://www.getgnash.org/ along with source snapshots. Please
report packaging bugs upstream to your distribution. If you think you
have found a bug in Gnash, then you should file as complete a report
as possible at https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=gnash. Patches are
always preferred to bug reports, as this is a community project. You
can submit patches at https://savannah.gnu.org/patch/?group=gnash, or
email them

Please include the operating system name and version, compiler
version, and which gnash version you are using, in your bug
reports. For bugs in the plugin, please also add the browser and
it's version. Gnash does not support Firefox versions below 1.0.4.

gnashdev.org

Below is the release announcement. Gnash has worked to synch cyles with Ubuntu and others, and is now on a 3-mo release cycle.

The third beta release of Gnash has just been made at version
0.8.4. Gnash is a GPL'd SWF movie player and browser plugin for
Firefox, Mozilla, and Konqueror. Gnash supports many SWF v7 features
and ActionScript 2 classes. with growing support for SWF v8 and
v9. Gnash also runs on many GNU/Linux distributions, embedded
GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, non x86 processors, and 64 bit
architectures. Ports to Darwin and Windows are in progress for a
future release. The plugin works best with Firefox 1.0.4 or newer, and
should work in any Mozilla based browser using NPAPI. There is also a
standalone player for GNOME or KDE based desktops.

Improvements since 0.8.3 release are:

        * Keep Adobe happy with our users and our users happy with us by
            changing "Flash player" into "SWF player" everywhere. Adobe
            claims "Flash" as a trademark and had asked a Linux distributor
            to fix it.
        * The popular SWF Twitter badge now renders correctly.
        * Fix parsing of urls containing multiple question marks
        * Fix support for movies embedding multiple sound streams
        * Support for loading PNG and GIF images added.
        * Improved rendering of SWF movies because of the less visible
            changes listed below.
        * Support for writing RGB/RGBA PNG images and JPEG images.
        * Works with Potlatch OpenStreetMap editor
        * New 'flvdumper' utility for analyzing FLV video files.
        * XPI packaging support for Mozilla & Firefox.

See the NEWS file for more improvements.

Gnash supports the majority of Flash opcodes up to SWF version 7, and
a wide sampling of ActionScript 2 classes for SWF version 8.5. Flash
version 9 and ActionScript 3 support is being worked on. All the
core ones are implemented, and many of the newer ones work, but may be
missing some of their methods. If the browser only displays a blank
window, it is likely because of an unimplemented feature. All
unimplemented opcodes and ActionScript classes and methods print a
warning when using -v with gnash or gprocessor. Using gprocessor -v is
a quick way to see why a movie isn't playing correctly.

You can grab the Gnash sources from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gnash/0.8.4,
or from Gnash Bzr from the branch .../gnas-0.8.4 . Binary packages for
Debian or RPM based systems will be available from your GNU/Linux
distribution, and from whatever BSD variant you are using. Experimental
binary packages built by the Gnash team are also available at
http://www.getgnash.org/ along with source snapshots. Please
report packaging bugs upstream to your distribution. If you think you
have found a bug in Gnash, then you should file as complete a report
as possible at https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=gnash. Patches are
always preferred to bug reports, as this is a community project. You
can submit patches at https://savannah.gnu.org/patch/?group=gnash, or
email them

Please include the operating system name and version, compiler
version, and which gnash version you are using, in your bug
reports. For bugs in the plugin, please also add the browser and
it's version. Gnash does not support Firefox versions below 1.0.4.

gnashdev.org

Below is the release announcement. Gnash has worked to synch cyles with Ubuntu and others, and is now on a 3-mo release cycle.

The third beta release of Gnash has just been made at version
0.8.4. Gnash is a GPL'd SWF movie player and browser plugin for
Firefox, Mozilla, and Konqueror. Gnash supports many SWF v7 features
and ActionScript 2 classes. with growing support for SWF v8 and
v9. Gnash also runs on many GNU/Linux distributions, embedded
GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, non x86 processors, and 64 bit
architectures. Ports to Darwin and Windows are in progress for a
future release. The plugin works best with Firefox 1.0.4 or newer, and
should work in any Mozilla based browser using NPAPI. There is also a
standalone player for GNOME or KDE based desktops.

Improvements since 0.8.3 release are:

        * Keep Adobe happy with our users and our users happy with us by
            changing "Flash player" into "SWF player" everywhere. Adobe
            claims "Flash" as a trademark and had asked a Linux distributor
            to fix it.
        * The popular SWF Twitter badge now renders correctly.
        * Fix parsing of urls containing multiple question marks
        * Fix support for movies embedding multiple sound streams
        * Support for loading PNG and GIF images added.
        * Improved rendering of SWF movies because of the less visible
            changes listed below.
        * Support for writing RGB/RGBA PNG images and JPEG images.
        * Works with Potlatch OpenStreetMap editor
        * New 'flvdumper' utility for analyzing FLV video files.
        * XPI packaging support for Mozilla & Firefox.

See the NEWS file for more improvements.

Gnash supports the majority of Flash opcodes up to SWF version 7, and
a wide sampling of ActionScript 2 classes for SWF version 8.5. Flash
version 9 and ActionScript 3 support is being worked on. All the
core ones are implemented, and many of the newer ones work, but may be
missing some of their methods. If the browser only displays a blank
window, it is likely because of an unimplemented feature. All
unimplemented opcodes and ActionScript classes and methods print a
warning when using -v with gnash or gprocessor. Using gprocessor -v is
a quick way to see why a movie isn't playing correctly.

You can grab the Gnash sources from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gnash/0.8.4,
or from Gnash Bzr from the branch .../gnas-0.8.4 . Binary packages for
Debian or RPM based systems will be available from your GNU/Linux
distribution, and from whatever BSD variant you are using. Experimental
binary packages built by the Gnash team are also available at
http://www.getgnash.org/ along with source snapshots. Please
report packaging bugs upstream to your distribution. If you think you
have found a bug in Gnash, then you should file as complete a report
as possible at https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=gnash. Patches are
always preferred to bug reports, as this is a community project. You
can submit patches at https://savannah.gnu.org/patch/?group=gnash, or
email them

Please include the operating system name and version, compiler
version, and which gnash version you are using, in your bug
reports. For bugs in the plugin, please also add the browser and
it's version. Gnash does not support Firefox versions below 1.0.4.

gnashdev.org

Looking forward to it? You can start here: http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/

umm......
GASH?
They have published the specs and the FOSS player isn't soup yet. So stop complaining and start coding buddy.
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
So get to work...

gnash 0.8.4 is the third beta release of the GNU Flash movie player. If you're not satisfied with Adobe Flash, you could check gnash out.

Calling it "intellectual property" only makes an already vague phrase worse. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html

That's an extraordinarily easy condition to meet given the copyleft nature of the license. It's in fact a much more succinct version of the same concept called out in section 11 of the GPLv3. Quoted in part from http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html:

"Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version."

Where "essential patent claims" and "contributor version" are defined at excruciating length over the course of the rest of the section.